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The Bitch has been busy.

Not only that, but The Bitch is just effing tired. Heh, I said ‘effing’ when I go ahead and say ‘fuck’ in the title. That’s irony. Either that, or The Bitch is just freaking tired. Too tired to type proper profanity.

So what’s new with you?

You know what? I should probably care about SEO optimization and all that shit but I don’t. I’m just downloading what’s in my head here. We don’t even spellcheck.

So when I start talking about my real topic, you won’t be surprised, will you?  So here we go:

Last week there was an election. Remember that? And a whole bunch of people were like crazy happy, because in one day, ONE FREAKING DAY PEOPLE, the world changed. Colors were brighter. People smiled at one another. People hugged each other (except for the gays in California, who are still not allowed legal hugging) and remembered what it was like to hope.

Hope.

Hope is a fucking transient thing, people.

[I should mention here that while a whole bunch of people were chill about the electionary outcome, a whole bunch more were pretty pissed off. It usually goes like that.]

[But fuck them since I know who I voted for anyway.]

Hope. What’s up with that, anyway? One day we’re all boo-hoo-the-world-sucks, and the next it’s like dude!-look-at-all-the-colors!-shiny! You know? And what’s happened since then? Seriously. I want to know. What’s happened?

The sun still comes up, right? And it still goes down? And you’re still paying off your mortgage (or not) and working at your job (or not), and things are pretty much the same as they were the day before the election. Right? Still drinking the same coffee? Still have two-legs-two-arms-two-eyes-a-brain (or not)?

I’ll tell you what’s different.

Hope.

You thought things would change, and so your perception of things changed. That’s all. Your perception. Remember this, will you? Because next time you’re all boo-hoo about something, remember it’s not the THING that needs to change for you to feel better about it, but YOUR PERCEPTION OF THAT THING. That’s all. An attitude adjustment. Change your brain, change your life (without the extra helping of judgment that there is something WRONG with your brain, okay?). That’s all it takes. Looking at things differently.

What, not convinced?

Fine.

An example, then.

Two people. Person A sells or gives away all his shit. All of it. Every last bit. He doesn’t make a ton of money from the selling, and he’s careful to give his shit to people who might love it the way he did. He’s left with what fits in his car. People ask, “WTF?” and he says, “OMG, I can’t believe what’s happening to me. I feel so fucking powerless. I had to sell all my shit and now I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. THIS SUCKS.”

Person B sells or gives away all his shit. All of it. Every last bit. He doesn’t make a ton of money from the selling, and he’s careful to give his shit to people who might love it the way he did. He’s left with what fits in his car. People ask, “WTF?” and he says, “DUDE! I feel so free! This is totally awesome, like, I am CONNECTED with the universe! You should try it.”

Okay, maybe this one is too obvious. But who is, um, happier? Who has hope? Who seems more open to the possibilities that life might just be sort of okay after all, even when things sort of suck?

Now, I’m not asking you to go all Pollyanna here, but seriously: who do you want to be, Person A (the realist), or Person B (obviously on hallucinogenics)?

See? It’s all in how you look at it.

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So The Bitch was talking to one of her minions Fellow Brilliant Blog-Type Persons recently, and this Blog-Type Person* is sort of brilliant and totally let the phrase “Stop Global Whining” slip out all unintentionally and of course The Bitch was naturally intrigued.  It’s an awesome phrase and any time The Bitch can steal someone else’s idea give credit where credit is due, she’s all up in that.

So let’s talking about whining, shall we?

Ugh, already I’m feeling that little edge of disgust, the one you get when you’re talking to somebody with LOTS of extra drool in their mouth, when you feel like if you only watched long enough, a big wet glob of that drool would ooze its way out of their mouth while they talk and you’d watch it plop wetly and silently right onto their collar, where it would slowly sink in, leaving a wet snail-trail slime spot of shiny mouth-ooze.  And you Can’t.Look.Away.  You are mesmerized by that mouthful of slobbery wetness.  And you’re totally disgusted at the same time, not only at what you’re watching, but at yourself for watching it.

That’s what fucking whining does to me.

And people whine All The Fucking Time.

Hello!  Whiners!  Instead of TALKING about it, why don’t you DO something about it?  Or just do SOMETHING period!

But no.  It’s far easier to just complain about stuff than it is to own it.  Owning your shit takes guts.  Owning your shit takes the courage to LOOK at your shit to begin with.  And who wants to do that?  No, it’s far easier just to sit on that couch holding the remote in one hand and your dick in the other, picking your nose with your other [and magically manifested] hand, yelling at whoever’s in the kitchen to HURRY IT UP FOR CRYING OUT LOUD THE SHOW’S ABOUT TO START GODDAMMIT, than it is to put your dick away and put down the fucking remote, get up, and walk into the goddamn kitchen yourself.

But the Wal-Mart generation has bred a bunch of illbred inbreeds who find it far easier to complain about the smell of everybody else’s shit than to notice that they’re sitting in a pile of their own.

The other day was Blog Action Day.  More than 12,000 bloggers wrote about poverty.  Many of them solicited donations for the Global Fund, Feeding America, Donors Choose, Project Peanut Butter, and others (how can you not give money to support the development of peanut butter?).  Others banded together and made microloans to people in need of a helping hand all over the world through Kiva.

And while on the one hand you can make the case that each of those 12,000+ bloggers was whining about poverty, the idea was to make the whining count for something.  So much mass whining all on the same day has an effect.  If you read blogs, and you read on Blog A about Blog Action Day and on Blog B something else about Blog Action Day and on Blog C something yet again about Blog Action Day, then either:

a) You unsubscribe from blogs A, B, and C because who wants to hear about poverty? Especially when it’s not mine! Bring on the LOLcats!

or

b) You fucking Get The Point, and like everyone else you are affected by what you read and decide to get up off that couch and go Do Something, like maybe donate that jar of pennies or something, or maybe make a microloan of your own (they’re an excellent return and change people’s lives, one sad shitty life at a time.  What’s better than that?).

But that’s about the only example of Whining For Good that The Bitch knows about.  All other forms of whining are shit and need to be eradicated from the planet.  Immediately.  Before they do more harm.  In fact, The Bitch can make a case for the theory that global whining is the CAUSE of global warming.  All that fucking hot air.

So next time you hear some fuckwit droning on about the gum-snapping woman in the airplane seat next to him, or about the guy in front of him at the supermarket who had ELEVEN items in a 10-and-under lane, do something.  Because all that whining is seriously using up all our air. Tell him to either quit his bleating and shut the fuck up or stop breathing up all our air.

It’s us or them, people.  Global whining is a serious matter.

*Fellow Brilliant Blog-Type person is Christa who wrote some funny shit about the time she rear-ended a dwarf (oh get your fucking mind out of the gutter! Not THAT kind of rear-ended!) and also some serious shit about, well, go see for yourself.  You need to.

Like the Bitch? Dude. Of course you do. Then go ahead and subscribe to my RSS feed!

[Click to embiggen.]

Is this fucking awesome, or what?  Tag cloud made courtesy of Wordle.*

*You do know what this is, right?  The Bitch painstakingly typed in ALL of the words ever uttered here at New Age Bitch, fed them laboriously into a computer the size of a refrigerator, and eight point seven hours later, this was the result.  This is what The Bitch talks about.

Now go play with this and make sentences out of it.  Go on.  I know you want to.

Oh, fuck.  I’ll start.  Here:

Post saying, “Fuck life! Talk fucking!”  Thought: deep, hidden.  Look!  Just someone stop!  Stupid…

There.  Now go play, will you?  Life is too short to fucking take it seriously.   Get your kicks where you can.

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I read a Twitter lament recently from someone lambasting the bazillions of homeowners who got in over their heads with loans they couldn’t possibly repay, and it got me to thinking about what made those homeowners sign away their first-born with blood on a dotted line made of precariously leaning towers of sub-prime greed.

1.  They were sorta greedy.

Everyone wants the American Dream.  You know what I mean:  the 4 bedroom 2.5 bath 3-car-garage behemoth in the suburbs, where nobody walks and you drive through two miles of identical rows of identical houses to a big fresh new-smelling mall where everyone gathers to eat by themselves in the drive-thru lane of Burger King, or if it’s a special night they wait 90 minutes for a table at Applebee’s or Olive Garden and eat the same thing thousands of people are eating all over the country at the same fucking time. 

Yeah. That dream.

That’s the dream that has sold 5 million iPhones.  That’s the dream that skyrocketed Wal-Mart to its place among the walking undead of capitalism. That’s the empty dream that millions of people have been chasing for years.

2.  They were sorta stupid.

They didn’t do their homework.  They thought, as many did, that the bubble would never burst, that the markets would continue to go up forever, that a real estate investment is a sure thing and not the crap shoot that it really is. Tons of people have bought into this mindset, so if it’s you, you’re not alone. But do you know how many people willingly put themselves into hock for $300K, $400K, or more based on the emotionalism of “But honey, it has a three-car garage and a jacuzzi!”*

3.  They believed the loan officer.

We believe doctors, lawyers, and anybody sitting on the other side of a desk from us.  Why?  Because they display their diploma on the wall behind us! 

This gives them the ability to know what is right for us?? Hardly. But we fucking do it all the time. Somehow that white coat, that desk, that diploma, renders us incapable of making a decision on our own and gives the person wearing that white coat or brandishing that diploma the Ultimate Authority to Decide Our Lives.

So fucking stop it. Stop giving away your power. Stop thinking that other people know more about you or your life than you do. Because the Bitch is fucking tired of it.

You do this, you know you do. You’re a nice person, right? So you’re concerned about what people think of you, right?

ZINNNNG!

That’s giving away your power. The SECOND you second-guess yourself about something because of what someone else might think or say or do, your power goes right out the window. You might as well sign over the papers to it right now. Go ahead. Sign ‘em over.

“But, Bitch!” I can hear you whining right now, “Those people, they’re Experts! They went to school and stuff! I don’t know ’bout birthin’ no babies!”

Yeah, and I’m sure you heard at some point that a third of doctors and lawyers graduated in the bottom third of their class, right? What makes you think these people know any more than you do, especially when it comes to YOUR FUCKING LIFE?

“But, Bitch!” You’re still whining. “I’m just being respectful! These people went to school and they studied and they, like, KNOW stuff!”

Shut up. Shut. Up.

Do you hear yourself?

Do you hear that sucking sound?

That’s the sound of YOUR power being sucked right out from inside you, YOUR power that you’re willingly giving away to anybody else, ANYBODY but you.

Why?

Because you’re fucking afraid to own your own power.

True.

You’re afraid. We’re taught to fear the power we all are born with, the power we all own. We are taught to just give it away to anybody who seems more educated, smarter, or more powerful than we are. We are not taught to own what we came here with.

The thing is, YOU are the person who knows what’s best for you. Sure, a loan officer, a doctor, a lawyer is going to have some specialized knowledge that comes from schooling and experience that maybe you don’t have.

But you still have the ability to know what is right for you. You just don’t believe that you do. It’s easier to give it away and trust someone else, and to hand over your life and your future to someone else. It’s easier to do that than it is to own what you came here with.

Trouble is, if you decide to own your power, then you also own the consequences of the choices you make when you own your power. You can’t blame anyone else anymore. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to look to yourself not only for your power but also for whatever happens when you make (gasp!) a mistake?

If you can do THAT, then you automatically have a toehold over everyone else in the universe. You make choices, you make choices that feel shitty and so feel like mistakes, and you learn. Ba dum bum. That’s life. But it feels a helluva lot better than giving away your power and feeling fucking helpless.

Take back your power. Take back your life. It’s YOUR life, after all.

*Okay, that was a rhetorical question, but if you demand an answer, it’s this: A FUCKING LOT OF THEM! ALMOST EVERYONE YOU KNOW! There, was that specific enough?

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So I may have mentioned before that I read other people’s blogs.  Guilty.  The Bitch reads blogs all fucking day, sacrificing her precious eyeballs for you people.  Fucking ungrateful.  And the Bitch is like an Internet Sponge, soaking up all the crap awesomeness that’s floating around out there.  And lately I’ve been running across some really awesome stuff, at least when measured by the Bitch-O-Meter.  Take this one.  This guy Tim starts off talking about words, and then look what happened!  First he totally pisses me off by telling me to “mind my language” (as if!) and then he gets all wise and shit and starts saying stuff that makes sense.  So go read it.

Fuck, I don’t mean now. Finish THIS post first, and THEN click. *Eyeroll*

Anyway.  I got to the end of Tim’s post where he’s talking about phrases to use instead of the garbage some of us usually fill our heads with, and when I came to “I want…”, fucking lightbulbs were exploding ALL OVER.  Seriously!  You know that mythical “aha!” moment we’re supposed to have when we think of something brilliant?  Well, picture that times like a thousand, because The Bitch is THAT brilliant.  Brilliant times a thousand.  And that’s like a hundredth of the actual lightbulbs.

I want.

Say that a couple of times, will you?

I want.

How does that feel?  Kind of weird, right?

See, the thing is, we’re all sort of fucked up when to comes to “I want.”  Lots of us, when we’re kids or something, are told in one way or another that saying “I want” is a bad thing.  Selfish, maybe.  We should think of others, not ourselves.  Think of those poor starving kids in China while you choke down those cold congealed peas!  And next time eat everything on your plate!

So “I want” has judgments.

And then we put “I want” away.  We don’t know what we want, because we’ve hidden it away in a dark closet somewhere.

Or, we go crazy with “I want.”  We run up enormous credit bills filled with “I want,” each trying to make a dent in the emptiness we feel inside.  We fill bigger and bigger houses with boatloads of crap destined to take over our landfills, and still it’s not enough.  We still feel that emptiness, even when surrounded by everything we thought we wanted.

The trouble is, we still don’t know what we want.  We’re running after something, sure, but we haven’t gotten to the heart of it.  “I want” is still hidden.  It’s underneath that pile of crap, hidden below a stack of credit card statements.

Oh, we talk about what we want all the time.  “I want world peace!” we chirp, or “I want a warm house in a safe neighborhood where I can raise my family!”  We talk about wanting stuff, but it’s the stuff that it’s okay to say we want.  These things are socially acceptable, so we are conditioned to want them.  A 4 bedroom 2.5 bath house in the suburbs, 1.7 kids, an iPhone and a Prius.  That’s what we want.  And while we’re at it, we want good government, adequate and available health care, world peace, an end to climate change, our health, and maybe some more Doritos.

We want what everyone else wants because it’s okay to want that.

But we still don’t know what WE want.

What do you want?

Feel that?  You had to take a deep breath, didn’t you?  You know why?

Because you don’t know what you want.

Most of us don’t know what we REALLY want.  Knowing what you want takes WORK.  You have to dig deep.  You think about what you want and then you go deeper:  WHY do you want that?  And digging deeper takes guts.  It takes courage.  It takes the strength to really look at yourself and answer questions with honesty.  And most of us aren’t all that willing to do that.  It’s hard.  It brings stuff up.  It feels icky.  And it reveals answers that may not fit within the image of ourselves we thought we had.  It reveals a person we didn’t know we were.

Is that what you want?

Do you want to find out who you really are?

Then start asking yourself, What do I want? And start listening to the answers.

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Sigh.

You know that voice?  The one in your head?  The voice in your head that tells you stuff?  You know the one I mean.  You’ve been listening to that little fucker for years now, and I am here to tell you that it is EATING ALL YOUR BRAIN CELLS.

This is the voice I mean.  Tell me this isn’t familiar to you.  ONE of these is in your head, almost guaranteed.

1.  You’re so fat.  Look at you, you’re hideous in these clothes!  Ugh, everyone can see how you look, you’re just huge!  Nothing hides it, you are so fat.  Fat and lumpy and ugly.  Fat, fat, fat.

2.  You’re a failure.  Nothing you do ever goes right.  Everything you do is wrong.  You can never do anything.  You never finish anything.  You might as well not even bother trying anymore, because you’ll just fail again.

3.  God you’re ugly.  Ugly as hell.  Look at you.  No one will ever love you like that.  You are ug-LEE, dude.  Ugly.

4.  No one fucking likes you.  They’re just pretending.  People can’t stand you.  They whisper behind your back; they’re always talking about you.  See how they turn around when you come in the room?  They can’t stand you.

5.  Why do you even exist?  You can’t do anything right, you’re fat, you’re ugly, no one even likes you.  Useless.  What’s the point?  You’re better off dead.

Yo, people, I’m like fucking depressed after typing that shit.  You know how that gets to you?  I mean, somewhere inside you know it isn’t true, but then you hear that voice, the voice that sounds like YOU, and you go, “Well, maybe…” and then you open up all kinds of trouble right there.  You start believing what you’re hearing, and you tell yourself that the stupid fucking voice in your head is more real than what you feel way deep down inside.

Mind fuck.

It’s a form of karma.  Karma with the self.  You create this situation that ends up limiting your own choices, because you become so paralyzed in the trance of that voice that’s you and not-you at the same time, and then all of a sudden you’re the deer in the headlights.  Stopped cold.  Staring blindly into the lights of the oncoming car that’s rushing toward you, about to crush your skull and return you to the Source of All That Is.

Except you weren’t quite ready to be dead yet, so you just ACT as if you were dead.  Because you’re now a fucking ZOMBIE and you can’t think for yourself because you’re now in the grip of that stupid fucking voice.  The voice that’s only real because you’ve tricked yourself into believing it is.

Well, fucking stop it, will you?

Except it’s not that easy, is it?  You’ve come to rely on that voice.  You’re used to it.  You think it’s real, more real than that OTHER voice way down deep inside, the one that should be fucking shouting but instead just emits a pathetic little peep of doubt from time to time.

So you have to train yourself to stop listening.  It’s not easy, people, I won’t lie to you.  But this is what you can do.  You’re going to trick yourself again, see?  Just  like you did a long long time ago when this little fucker started talking to you and you started believing it.  But that was a long time ago and you’re a different person now.  You’re older and you’re wiser and you’re better equipped to choose the soundtrack that plays in your head.

Okay, from now on, every time you hear anything negative in your head, the very beginning of that narrative you know so well, just shout out a big “No!”

“NO!”

That’s all it takes.

Because you are choosing now which voice you will believe.

You are choosing now, and you can do this.  Just start with “no.”  Saying “no” will open up a new door, one that you closed a long time ago.  The door is still there and it’s been there all this time but you weren’t using it.  So you know where to go once you get the door open.  Just open the door with a “no,” and things will start to change.  It takes time.  You have to do this over and over.  But once you get the door open with your “no,” you can start a new narrative, one filled with things you like.

1.  You have everything you need inside you, and you always did.

2.  You are an amazing person.

3.  There is a glow of energy around you, and people notice it.

[One caveat here.  You know the fortune cookie joke, the one where at the end of reading any fortune you add the words "in bed"?  Be sure you are not adding Evil Fortune Cookie Crap to the end of your new sentences.  Do NOT, for instance, do this:  "You have everything you need inside you, and you always did but you're such a fuck-up that you failed to see this all this time and you suck!  You FAIL!"]

See?  Don’t do that last bit.

Need extra help?  Cover your ears with your hands, and start just singing something nonsensical.  ANYTHING to get your mind off that old voice and the crap it tells you.  (Just don’t make it “Feelings” unless you want The Bitch to start stabbing herself repeatedly in the eye with the business end of a USB cord.)

How long does this take?  Depends.  It took you awhile to get to this point, so undoing your own mind-fuck takes some time.  But you should start noticing changes.  And seriously, this is your chance to give yourself a gift that’s anything you want.  Anyone you want to be, that you know deep down you really are, that’s what you want this new-old voice to be telling you.  That’s the voice that never left you, that was always there, but you forgot about it.  Pay attention to it.  Open that door again and let it out to play.

You won’t regret it.

Like the Bitch? Dude. Of course you do. Then go ahead and subscribe to my RSS feed!

(Fuck, Bitch, where have you been?)

Well, have you looked here?  That’s right, people, The Bitch does guest posts.  Call me if you want things shaken up over at your place.  Have a quick look at my blog standards first, just in case.

Okay, moving on here.  We need to talk about something that’s been cluttering up the internets for far too long, taking up space that could be useful.  You know what I’m talking about:  self-deprecating humor.

The next time you laugh at, say, Amalah the Mommyblogger, ask yourself, “What the fuck am I laughing at?  How is this shit funny?”  Oh, sure, we laugh at people poking fun at themselves.  And here’s why:  Better them than me.

Sure, it’s easy to laugh at someone falling all over their ass or imagining that they were going to fall all over their ass and wondering what other people are thinking about them or would think if they actually did fall all over their ass, and then writing about it in a charmingly self-deprecatory way.  That’s fucking funny, we think.  Because it’s 1.) Not us, and 2.) Laughing at the stupid shit we do has become socially acceptable, and socially expected.

So when did it become passe to talk about ourselves in a positive way?  To say things like, “Hey look, I am fucking-A awesome!”  People who do that are thought of as assholes, even if they’re sort of right.  (Or they’re worshiped, the way you worship The Bitch, but that’s WHY you love me.  Because I am so different.  Plus I’m totally hot.)

I’m tired of this fakery shit, though.  Sure, people are capitalizing on their feelings of inner inadequacy by processing them in a highly public manner, and The Bitch is all about going public with inner shit, but this stuff feeds on itself and creates more.  One person writing about the time they fell down a hill because their fucking heel broke but they had a glass of wine so people thought they were drunk off their ass and never believed the story about the breaking heel and OMG they are soooo embarrassed by this and can never never never show their face in public again (never mind all the hundreds of Flickr sets devoted to said blogger and blogger’s drunkblogging and drunkblogging blogfriends)* just creates this giant sucking VACUUM that other people rush in to fill.  But people, you cannot possibly fill the void of someone else’s feeling of inadequacy by writing about your own.  Just because this shit is popular does not mean it’s even remotely useful except as a global communal catharsis tool.  And rushing in to fill that fucking vacuum only makes the holes in yourself appear bigger.

Instead, I want people to write about the great stuff they do.  Everybody has successes; when did they become something to hide?  Hey, you made toast this morning?  WAY TO GO!  YOU ARE AWESOME!  At least, if it was superior toast.  None of this bread-no-warmer-than-if-I-stuck-the-slice-under-my-arm shit.  I want REAL toast.  Toast-colored toast.  THAT is something to be proud of.

And let’s take this a step further:  don’t limit your anti-trash talk about yourself to what you put on the internet.  Is it a crime to say “I am wonderful!” and actually mean it?  I mean, who among you is truly NOT wonderful?  Why can’t you just SAY IT, for fuck’s sake?

And sure, lots of us have this fucked-up inner voice inside us telling us how shitty we are.  But that stuff is NOT TRUE, so you have my permission to stop listening to it, RIGHT NOW.  In fact, every time you hear that voice, I want you to tell it to go fuck itself, that YOU are in charge, and that YOU MAKE AWESOME TOAST.

~~~~~

From the this-would-be-fucked-up-if-it-wasn’t-so-funny department, The Bitch received a death threat in response to her post about vigilante vegetarians.  So if you laughed at that post, I have to assume you’re included in the threat.  Watch out for people wielding fur coats and tomato stakes.

*This is a TOTALLY hypothetical blogstory, but if it wasn’t TOTALLY hypothetical you could probably read about something very similar to it here.

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As you know, I exist to enlighten you heathens from the bullshit that lies amid the fucked-up swill that is the New Age and self-help movement. (Doesn’t the phrase “New Age” make you want to throw up a little? I can barely type it without losing my breakfast into my laptop. Ditto “self-help.” Fuck that.) My modus operandi is a little like decorating a golden brick with lotus flowers and then smashing your brains out with it. Whatever works, that’s my motto, even if it requires reconstructive brain surgery afterward. Whatever. It’s your brain, not mine. You asked for enlightenment, right?

Today’s topic: your thoughts create your reality. Change your thoughts, change your life!

If there wasn’t some truth to this, why would you be reading a bitch like me?

But here’s the problem: far more often than creating something empowering from this concept, people use it to punish themselves.  They say, “Oh, well, this shitty dumbass thing happened to me, so I must have created it.  I am a bad person for creating this bad thing in my life!”  Or they say, “I had a desire to slip an overdose of laxatives into that arrogant prick’s morning coffee today, so I must not be a loving person. Oh no! I must control my thoughts!”   Or, “I’m feeling shitty, and I had all these bad thoughts about myself, so I need to clench my butt cheeks and think only happy-Oprah* thoughts!”

Notice a thread here?  Control.   It’s all about control, people.

Yes, your thoughts do have an effect on you and on your life. But you can’t control them. You can’t control your emotions, either. Most of the time we can’t even control our bodies. I know how my body reacts when a spandex-clad** aging crooner starts singing “Feelings.”  Can’t control it.  And it isn’t pretty. (That sound you’re hearing now?  Ever hear a cat about to throw up?  ulp.ulp.ulp.ulp.  You hear it and you know what’s coming and there’s no way in hell to stop it.  Splat!  It’s a little like that, times about a thousand.)

Here’s an experiment to show you that you can’t control your thoughts.  Ready?  Okay:  do not think about red monkeys.  Do. Not. Think about red monkeys.

You can’t think about anything BUT red monkeys right now, can you?  There’s fucking red monkeys ALL OVER THE PLACE.  See?  And trying to NOT think about something only makes that thing more present.  Go play this with someone else and have some fun.

Do you know why you like The Bitch? Because I don’t try to control my thoughts. They are the same thoughts that you have and don’t admit to having—and you laugh because you’re seeing that they’re not so bad after all. (Though hopefully you’re not thinking about spandex men singing “Feelings”. Then you’d really be kind of fucked up and I’m not sure I want to know you.)

This isn’t to say that we’re helpless peons at the unholy mercy of our fucked-up thoughts and feelings. Of course there is choice and free will and all that.

But you want to know a secret?  Lean in a little closer.

If someone tells you to control yourself – or your thoughts – they are trying to control you.

Oh fuck, I don’t mean the Vulcan Mind Meld or anything.  No one is trying to turn you into a fucking robot.  But asking you, expecting you, to change your thoughts is a subtle form of control.

It’s brainwashing, people. Wipe you clean, ma’am?  If you can get people to try to do something impossible, like controlling the uncontrollable, of course they’ll come back time and again asking for more help and advice. Side of fries with that brainwash?  And you give them your power, willingly, because you feel like a failure.  You buy into the idea that you need to put away a part of yourself in order to feel accepted.  You try and you try and you try, failing every time (because you’re trying to do the impossible), and every time wondering what more you could have done.  You give away more and more of your own power every time you do this.

The bitch does not want your power. I totally deserve your worship, but only because I’m helping you become enlightened. No one deserves your power.  No one except you.  I help you find your own inner Bitch, and for that I of course have your undying endless gratitude.  Also you can send money.

Back to the whole “you create your own reality” thing. Does the Bitch disagree with that concept? Of course not. Look at the reality I’m creating for you right here. No spandex, for one thing.  Freedom of thought and expression.  Feel how good it is to call me a bitch?  Go on, say it.  You know you want to.  And then say “fuck.”  Right out loud.  And then say, “I am perfect.”  (Because you know I am.)(And more importantly, I know I am.)

But even though my words say something else, the Bitch isn’t about ego. The Bitch is about honesty, about calling things for what they are, and about having fun at the same time. That’s my reality.

What’s yours?

*That’s the thin Oprah, obviously.

**Yet another type of control.  And while a nice pair of Spanx cures a lot of ills, nothing can make “Feelings” palatable.

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So for my first meme, I call it a success: no one guessed successfully, although you certainly tried hard. I find it amusing that most of you thought that my past involved either jail or anti-depressants. But let’s just say that while every single answer has a basis in reality, none of them are true.

I received a plea from Matthew asking to be tagged on this. So I therefore tag Matthew. Go and have a look at his site; it’s satisfyingly bizarre.

Anybody else? It’s not too late.

Like the Bitch? Dude. Of course you do. Then go ahead and subscribe to my RSS feed!

OMFG.

That was my response upon learning the Bitch had been tagged.  For a meme.  You think the Bitch is above such things?  You would be absolutely correct. Not at all.  The Bitch is a Joiner.  Plays Well With Others.  In fact, if you want YOUR BLOG to be included in a list of links here at New Age Bitch, and I wholeheartedly (or is that coldheartedly…?) recommend that you leave your info in a comment and the Bitch will see to it that your site appears on the list.

We’re exclusive here, but not that exclusive.  Meaning, if you’re here and you’ve read this far it’s presumed that you’ve already transcended at least a minimal level of awareness and appreciation.

Who is it that had the amazing gall to tag New Age Bitch for a meme?  Blogger Dad.  Read his answers here.  And then proceed at your own risk.  Except we’re going to play this a little differently (you knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?).  You’ll have to pick out the correct answers yourself.

Where Were You Ten Years Ago?

a.  In jail.

b.  Driving a mini van to soccer.

c.  Somewhere in India, on an ashram.

d.  Seriously considering Prozac.

What’s on Your To Do List Today?

a.  Piss people off, kick an old lady in the shins, and jaywalk.

b.  Swallow my tongue.

c.  Experience Inbox Zero for at least 2.7 minutes.

d.  Levitate.

What If You Were A Billionaire?

a.  What makes you think I’m not?

b.  What if we all just got along?  Let’s start with a nice big group hug, okay?

c.  I would mail everyone I know a check for a dollar.

d.  I would buy all the cans of creamed corn in existence and store them in my basement.

Five Places You Have Lived?

a.  Jail.  See question #1.

b.  In my head.

c.  California.  See a, and b.

d.  Define “lived”.

f.  Earth?

Three Bad Habits?

a.  None.  The Bitch has no bad habits.

b.  None.  What are YOU looking at??!

c.  None.  Sex addictions don’t count, right?

d.  None.  Fuck you!

Snacks You Like?

a.  Salty-crunchy.

b.  Sweet.

c.  Dairy-creamy-sweet.

d.  Wait, are we talking about food here?

Who Will You Tag?

a.  That’s for me to know and you to find out.

b.  That’s a little like picking favorites, isn’t it?  Either that or creating punishments.  Fuck that.  The Bitch doesn’t do either.  Tell you what.  If you want to do this meme, do it.  Send me an email and I’ll be sure to mention you and link to your post somewhere prominent.   Deal?  Because I just don’t want to deal with the crying and the disappointment.

The end.

Like the Bitch? Dude. Of course you do. Then go ahead and subscribe to my RSS feed!